Rachel Elnaugh | |
|---|---|
 Elnaugh in 2023 | |
| Born | 1964 (age 59–60) Essex, England |
| Education | Chelmsford County High School for Girls |
| Known for | Red Letter Days, Dragons' Den, Anti-vaccine activism |
| Children | 5 |
| Website | https://rachelelnaugh.com |
Rachel Elnaugh (born 1964 [1] ) is a former British entrepreneur who founded the UK gift company Red Letter Days. She was one of the investors participating in the first two series of BBC Two's reality TV show Dragons' Den .
Elnaugh was born in Essex in 1964. When she was young she lived above her father's electrical shop, 'Elnaugh and Son' in Chelmsford. Rachel attended Chelmsford County High School for Girls, a grammar school in Essex. She originally wanted to take art history, but she was rejected by five universities. [2] [1] Before she founded her own company, she worked for the accountancy firm Arthur Andersen. [3]
In 1989, Elnaugh founded Red Letter Days, one of the first UK companies to sell experiential gifts, such as motor racing days, hot air ballooning and health spa days. [4] [2] She could not get a bank loan at the time, so friends and family contributed £7,000 to the budget. [3]
The company grew to an £18 million annual turnover and led to Elnaugh being a 2001/2 finalist in the Veuve Clicquot Businesswoman of the Year and Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year. [5] [3]
In 2005, the company went into administration, and the remaining assets and inventory were bought by her fellow Dragons' Den entrepreneurs Theo Paphitis and Peter Jones. [6] [7] ITV1's Tonight programme criticised the business model of Red Letter Days, which included unpaid suppliers and disappointed purchasers. The programme suggested that the company failed to escrow or earmark supplier payment equity, using it instead as working capital. [8] [9] However, Elnaugh blamed Red Letter Days' bankers, [8] and stated that the decision to go into administration was made to minimise job losses at the company. [10]
In the mid 2000s, Elnaugh joined the BBC's reality series Dragons' Den . [4] She was one of the five investors ("Dragons") in the first two series of the show, being the only female dragon at that time. [11] During her tenure on the show, she made five agreed investment offers[ citation needed ] – in Grails, [12] Le Beanock, [13] Snowbone, [14] Elizabeth Galton [15] and Bedlam Puzzles. [16] [17] After Red Letter Days went into administration, between the filming and release of the second season, her "position became untenable" according to Elnaugh, and was replaced in the third season by Deborah Meaden. [18] [19]
In 2005, she was head of a company called Easyart. [2] The following year, she produced a double CD pack consisting of "positive business thinking", The Life Changers, with hypnotherapist Glenn Harrold. [18] In her book Business Nightmares - When Entrepreneurs Hit Crisis Point (2008), she wrote of her Red Letter Days experiences. [20] [1] The Evening Herald 's reviewer said "A novel and more original approach to the jaded "how to get ahead in business" manuals, even for the casual browser, Business Nightmares makes for a surprisingly entertaining and accessible read." [21] Elnaugh founded the digital publishing and marketing platform Source TV in 2013. [1] Her book Prosperity was published in 2016. She described it as "a summary of Rachel's key teachings around money, flow and abundance drawn from her years as a business mentor". [1]
During the COVID-19 pandemic, she aired her views on the vaccination programme, calling COVID vaccinations of 12-15-year-olds "child abuse". She was criticised when she called for Chris Whitty, Chief Medical Adviser to the UK Government, to hang. [22] [23]
Elnaugh was subsequently part of a group called 'Phoenix Rose' which bought 72 acres of land in Cressbrook Dale, Derbyshire, in an attempt to create a "safe haven away from the threat that humanity [is] facing". [24] [25] The scheme, that has been described as an 'anti-vax outpost', proved controversial with locals. [24] [1] [25] The group was served with an enforcement notice in August 2023, but took no action, forcing the Peak District National Park Authority to forcibly remove the structures at the site, in December of that year. [26] [25]
In May 2023, Elnaugh stood for a seat on the Derbyshire Dales District Council, under a party that she co-founded earlier that year called the LOVE Party. However, the party is not registered with the Electoral Commission, [27] so she appeared on the ballot as an independent. She came in sixth place with 175 votes, being beaten by Conservative Party candidates Mark Wakeman and Gareth Bryn Gee. [28] In February 2024 she stood in a local council by-election and placed last with 36 votes, the seat was won by Labour candidate Bob Butcher. [29]
In February 2024, she announced her intention to stand in that year's East Midlands mayoral election, under the name "Rachel Elnaugh-Love". [30] However, after the deadline for candidates to be officially registered, on the 6 April, had passed, her name did not appear on the final list. [31] She will again stand under this name in the 2024 general election for the Derbyshire Dales constituency. [32] [33]
As of 2023, she has five sons and has been married twice. [1] [23]
Rachel Hannah Weisz is a British actress. Known for her roles in independent films and blockbusters, she has received several awards, including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Laurence Olivier Award.
Red Letter Days is a UK company which was an early adopter of the concept of giving experience day vouchers as gifts and corporate rewards, based in Farringdon, London in the offices of its parent company, Moonpig Group.
Theodoros Paphitis is a Greek-Cypriot British retail magnate and entrepreneur. He is best known for his appearances on the BBC business programme Dragons' Den and as former chairman of Millwall Football Club.
Doug Richard is an American entrepreneur best known for his television appearances in the United Kingdom. He appeared as a "Dragon" on the first two series of Dragons' Den and was also a government adviser.
Deborah Sonia Meaden is a British businessperson and TV personality who ran a multimillion-pound family holiday business, before completing a management buyout. She is best known for her appearances as a 'Dragon' on the BBC business programme Dragons' Den.
Dragons' Den is a British reality television business programme, presented by Evan Davis and based upon the original Japanese series. The show allows several entrepreneurs an opportunity to present their varying business ideas to a panel of five wealthy investors, the "Dragons" of the show's title, and pitch for financial investment while offering a stake of the company in return.
Destination is a brand of roll-and-move board games first published in 2004. In the original taxi-themed version, players compete as taxi drivers to acquire play money by moving from destination to destination across the board using dice. The game combines chance from rolling dice and drawing chance cards with a degree of strategic decision-making in planning routes and managing resource cards.
Rachel Jane Reeves is a British politician serving as Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer since 2021. A member of the Labour Party, she has been Member of Parliament for Leeds West since 2010.
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Julie Marie Meyer MBE is an American businesswoman and the author of Welcome to Entrepreneur Country. She is the sole director of Viva Investment Partners. She founded Ariadne Capital Limited and Ariadne Capital Malta Limited, and was a co-founder of the networking forum First Tuesday. In 2009, Meyer was a guest on the online edition of the Dragons' Den TV series.
Xperience Days is an experiential gifts company and was founded in New Jersey in 2004 by Michelle Geib, Gavin Bishop and Robb Young. The business is modelled after the experience gift companies first launched in the UK and pioneered by Acorne. The concept was popularised by Red Letter Days, in particular by the appearance of founder Rachel Elnaugh on the BBC series Dragons' Den.
Margaret Ann Throup is a British Conservative Party politician who has served as the Member of Parliament (MP) for Erewash in Derbyshire since the 2015 general election. Prior to entering politics, Throup worked as a biomedical scientist and business consultant.
Sara Davies is a British businesswoman, entrepreneur, and television personality. She is the founder and owner of Crafter's Companion, a company she started while a student at the University of York. In April 2019 it was announced that she would join the panel of the BBC television programme Dragons' Den for its seventeenth series, replacing Jenny Campbell who decided to leave the programme in early 2019. In 2021, Davies was appointed the North East Ambassador for Smart Works Newcastle, a charity supporting unemployed women into work through clothing and coaching.
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